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About Zero and DDOJ During the early 1990's when I was doing alot of writing, I came up with a strange idea. Why not take two characters from Colt #1 (also called KZ Comics #1) and make a new story with them? My cousin Dave created Zero and DDOJ and they appeared in the first issue of Colt and disappeared from comics. When he left KZ Comics after the first issue, his characters went with him. But he never did anything with them. So I figured I would do a fun story with the two characters. The first thing you have to remember is neither character was really fleshed out. Zero was a man in an insane asylum who may or may not have saved earth with some ring. While there were going to be more stories with Zero, he was pretty much left with one story that was wrapped up. I left the basics of the character, he was in an institution. But I made him get rehabilitated and released. I also gave him a history with a military father (which he had in his story) and an origin to his strange name. I kept his real name the same, Charles Lewis. But I had him become a cab driver and then decide to just take off. So he is still a bit crazy. DDOJ was originally a joke character created by my cousin Dave. Think of his as KZ Comic's version of Alfred E. Newman from Mad Magazine. He is the butt of jokes. He was originally created back in the 1970's as a school project. Dave then used him in a series of goofy cartoons that he did. I also did a bunch of corny one page jokes with DDOJ. He was always a bit stupid and always had a big head. He originally looked more like a clown, but he evolved to just having a parmecium head as we called it. The original meaning of his name was Dumb Dorko Oliver Jones. That was one of the first things I changed in the story and by the end you will see the new meaning of his name. I kept his physical appearance the same, but changed his personality. Instead of being stupid, I made him naive. He is pretty much the opposite of Zero. While he originally lived in Smiling George's Happy Valley Insane Asylum in Dave's stories, I had him live in an orphanage. He is 18 years old and just leaving the orphanage. He has a last address of his mother and is on a trip to find her. The problem is he lives in New York and the last address for her is California. But that doesn't stop him from trying. I originally wrote the first three issues of the story (at the time it was just one long story, I have since broke it into issues) and stopped. It did almost become more than a story twice. The first time was an artist named John Stephan loved the story and offered to draw it. He did the first few pages, which were amazing. We sent it to distributors and it was listed. But after the first few pages, he decided to quit being an artist and instead become a pool hustler. So the issue was dead in the water. It did receive some orders, not alot but we did have a very high cover price for the time. At a later date, an employee at my store told me his father was in contact with Tim Burton. His father who was now divorced from is mother, was high up at a major department store chain and often rubbed shoulders with famous people. He told his son that if he sent a screenplay, he would give it to Tim Burton. The employee, Keith being his name, was also a writer but did not have any stories. So he asked me if we could turn Zero and DDOJ into a screenplay. He really liked the story and thought that it was weird enough for Tim Burton. So we worked on turning it into a screenplay. I only had the three chapters, so we did that much and sent it along. I never did hear anything about whether Tim Burton received it or ever read it. When I started this website, this was one of the stories I wanted to finish. I really wanted the story to have alot of movie and music references. As you can see, each chapter is named after a song. The story will finish up and there will be an definitive ending. Hope you enjoy the story! |
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